Explore the ways that power and authority shape spoken language

Most of the communication we do is speech. When we hear people talk we make judgements on them automatically on how fast they speak, the tone of their voice and their accent. Such as if we hear someone who speaks in a RP (Received Pronunciation) accent we will think they are upper-class. Whereas someone who speaks in a more “common” accent in England, known as cockney, and particularly in London will be thought to be in a slightly less privileged background and will be seen as middle-class.

An example of a specific group of people that speak in a RP accent would be politicians, as they are associated with being educated, well-bred and powerful. Margaret Thatcher’s original idiolect was a Lincolnshire accent as a girl but she was told to get rid of it to succeed in public life, because in that time it was seen to be people who could speak RP were “respected”. In her most recent speeches when she was prime minister she had adapted a fluent RP accent which was seen to be “perfect”. Although there are many politicians that do the opposite and change their RP accent into a more casual way of speaking. An example would be Tony Blair; throughout his childhood he went in a private school and spoke RP just like Margaret but as a politician he began to speak in a more “common” English accent because he felt it was more relatable to people, and he thought he could “fit in more”. George Osborne has had a more notable change to his speech from when he was younger to where he is now. When he was 28, he made a small speech on behalf of William Hague. He was very formal and spoke in a RP accent, throughout the speech he was very serious although in some instances he used a lot of pauses and was stuttering. Now in a Morrison’s speech he made in 2013 he went from speaking in a RP accent to a much more “common” accent and verged onto speaking in a “mockney” accent where he was dropping his T’s and H’s in many instances like when he said “had” and “have” he pronounced them as “ad” and “ave”. He also said the word “kinda” for the word “kind of” but he was much more confident and changed his dialect accordingly because he was trying to be more relatable to his public audience which were the workers of Morrison’s at that time. His dialect also changes in several other occasions such as when he was taking an interview with Andrew Marr, he was very fluent in his speech and spoke much more posh then he did in Morrison’s, although he didn't have a perfect RP accent. Also in the House Of Commons he changes his dialect. He went on to make a joke about Ed Balls who is seen to be his “enemy” in politics. He was insulting his piano skills and the politicians found it hysterical. George is seen to be a politician who is often very serious about his work and speech. Someone is is conveyed to be quite the opposite is Borris Johnson. Borris is more of a “crowd pleaser” and he likes to exaggerate his speech and natural idiolect. He also comes from a very privileged background but rather then disguising the “poshness” he maintains a exaggeration on it in most of his speeches as if he is looking for extra attention. He appears in room 101 Paul Merton and he uses very exotic words such as “drolleries” and “japeries”. The effect he creates from this is that he becomes the maverick rather than a normal politician. People are use to this from him and the enjoy his presence because of this, so much so that he can get away with saying things that other politicians would be loathed for. When he got a question about the cost of a loaf